Tell me about your favourite music experiences of 2017

oh man that sounds totally great, I wanna do a 4-hour ambient set in a library!

2017 was the first year I got seriously back into production since 2010 (before that it was non stop). The therapeutic renewal I feel makes me wonder how I waited this long but life finds a way

Reading this thread has made me realise just how far I've fallen in terms of musical experiences - i.e., I've barely had any this year. I could write about the tickets I've turned down (GAS, Shirley, Necks, Aine O'Dwyer, Pharoah), or how Spotify has trapped me in its comfy oxbow lake of ever-decreasing circles, but that woukd be self indulgent. Like this post. Anyway, it's all down to a career change that has meant no spare cash, no spare time and less than no spare headspace and all this is part of the ruminations as to whether it's been worth it.

- fwiw, seeing Shawn Smith in a tiny pub up the road was gently life-affirming, even if he did fuck up a cover of Purple Rain.

Meant to ask - to counter the Spotify shrinkage, which radio shows would people recommend?

busker in tourist-thronged Canterbury jamming like a dervish on a homemade one-stringed electric guitar

damn y'all get out & about!! i don't think i saw any live music at all in 2017 apart from ****sunshine daydream**** our local grateful dead cover band but let me tell you they are killer and they did a version of "black peter" in october that blew me away

others:

-getting my art studio set up in our attic and listening to music while i paint. i work on my art late at night and have been playing a lot of very mellow late night music - mazzy star, cowboy junkies, those two famous talk talk albums. everyone in the house is asleep except for me, it feels so quiet & intimate to be working up there so late
-staining our attic floor in july while blasting fun house. it was such a shitty job to do and the polyurethane fumes made me feel sick but fun house helped me work briskly and made it somewhat fun. i had to a few coats over several days so CCR helped a lot too
-hearing t rex "life's a gas" on college radio, first time i ever heard the song and while i knew it was t rex i had never really listened to him much but that tune leveled me and i ended up listening to a ton of t rex this year
-getting beyond a lot of the typical children's music w/ my two sons - we started listening instead to a lot of classic country because the songs are so good and easily learned, they have good stories, lots of fun novelty songs that they love - little jimmy dickens "country boy", "take an old cold tater and wait" "a-sleepin at the foot of the bed" lefty frizzell "saginaw michigan", "if you've got the money i've got the time". they also have caught on to the dead stuff we play and ask for "uncle john's band", "dire wolf" a whole lot. it is is neat to see what they take to & what they don't

- seeing the Mayhem DMDS show in Brooklyn, and chatting metal with old Bay Area pals
- banging the shit out of my head at the Aura Noir show
- figuring out some crucial stuff about EQ and compression
- falling for Popol Vuh, goreshit and Germaine Tailleferre in major ways
- making a xmas song with my wife and little girl

- figuring out some crucial stuff about EQ and compression

curious what your revelations were but maybe that's better suited to IMM

^^ yes please!

I want to hear the Xmas song!

lol nothing too mysterious. just coming to the realization that less is almost always more, and for EQ, learning how to filter out frequencies that aren't necessary to the sound. I also learned various things that are particular to certain instruments or voices, but probably nothing actual recording engineers wouldn't have figured out very early on.

imago, it's on my bandcamp page in the Misc. album folder -- we did a version of the Chestnuts xmas song :)

oh cool, couldn't find it otherwise!

Writing a track with 100% field recorded binaural samples from the machine shop at work and then performing it for a bewildered audience a week later.

ooh! i have heard you never know what you're getting with a richard youngs show -- what did you get?

It was like this 3 hour journey of shaggy dog stories, audience participation, the odd shouted (by me) request and achingly sad ballads. Quite an evening.

<3 richard youngs

thanks to your contributions to this thread everyone, it's been nice reading them

marcos, are any of your paintings online?

This is a great thread and the sort of thing that doesn't get talked about enough here.

I was at that GAS thing and it was wonderful, but my personal highlight was watching Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson play at the RFH, midway through the performance they were playing this swirling piano and synth thing and when Laurie started speaking you realised it was coalescing into a cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Democracy'. I nearly lost it right there and then.

This is a great thread and the sort of thing that doesn't get talked about enough here.

^^^^this
thread makes me really happy

me too

marcos, are any of your paintings online?

not yet! i'm hoping to create a website in the new year though

when Laurie started speaking you realised it was coalescing into a cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Democracy'

<3

This reminds me of another great moment: Susanne Sundfor covering "After the Gold Rush"

another awesome thing that just happened a couple of days ago is that I got my wife a Yamaha keyboard for the Solstice and we jammed for the first time a couple of nights ago in the key of D, it sounded good! I think I was talking on IMM about how we have a PA and a digital recorder set up in the basement now along with my electric guitar and the new keyboard. she was trying to work with a melodica and an accordion but they are physically demanding! I never knew.

next step is obviously a flood of self-released microlabel CDR releases :)

this year i also discovered the music of r stevie moore. at first i went through his numerous albums cherry-picking the "pop hits" but each album is its own thing and you got surrender to his weirdness. hes amazing! one of a kind

I've been fortunate enough to play live more often than I ever before this year. Performing music became a much more regular part of my life in 2017 and for that I'm grateful.

Thanks to Spotify (and at least partially thanks to ILX), I listened to more new music than ever before this year, even though I didn't go to as many concerts.

In terms of live music experiences, I loved seeing Susanne Sundfor at LPR, Jay-Z at Barclays, Sturgill Simpson at Radio City, and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever in the Bowery Ballroom. I guess a New Year's Resolution of mine is to keep better track of when artists I like come into town--I swear I used to be pretty good at that...

getting beyond a lot of the typical children's music w/ my two sons - we started listening instead to a lot of classic country because the songs are so good and easily learned, they have good stories, lots of fun novelty songs that they love - little jimmy dickens "country boy", "take an old cold tater and wait" "a-sleepin at the foot of the bed" lefty frizzell "saginaw michigan", "if you've got the money i've got the time". they also have caught on to the dead stuff we play and ask for "uncle john's band", "dire wolf" a whole lot. it is is neat to see what they take to & what they don't

― marcos
You might check out Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits, with lots of my own childhood faves: he was smart about doing theme songs from movies with kid appeal--not Disney so much, but big screen Westerns---also covered some by Jimmie (sometimes Jimmy) Driftwood, who started as a schoolteacher, writing historical (or sometimes dime novel) yarn-songs for his students.

-Errorsmith in Berlin playing bangers for hours
-Laurel Halo playing Ability II's "Pressure Dub" at The Art School
-Kyla La Grange at King Tut's, being a truly great popstar
-getting the aux cable at a house party where I knew one other person and playing Oni Ayhun's "OAR-003B" and watching everyone get dreamy
-the Definite Party Material radio show on Noods and accompanying Youtube channel
-the bounce remix of Adele's "Hello" that somehow felt like a private meme and yet everywhere I went to dance in Spring
-being signed off work in the summer with stress, and using the hot afternoons to sit in the park and listen to the Gaussian Curve album and feeling calmer for it
-friends trying to lift my mood by taking me out for drinks to a deserted pub, and being the last three in the place, making the DJ play "The Boy Is Mine" and making it into a three-part duet somehow
-having the courage to let other people hear my own music
-a very intense, strung-out hour-long conversation late after a night of excess, talking about the mix of low culture and high art in Shakespeare's Sister "Stay" because a music channel played the video
-a club that played nothing but Madonna singles all night
-three blogs: Test Pressing, Listen To This! and Ban Ban Ton Ton
-a drunken Chromatics-inspired cover of Shania Twain to take a pal's mind off a break-up
-sitting in an outdoor hot tub in the Scottish borders with my brother, drinking and blasting Job Jobse's XLR8R mix into the adjacent farmland
-discovering the YouTube account "Mixsensei" which hosts 80s groove and 90s street soul, none of the uploads I had ever heard of but so many gems
-the Young Marco Italian dream house compilation and wormholes on Discogs and Youtube it sent me down
-every time I heard Jax Jones "You Don't Know Me" in the wild and getting excited, every time, thinking how nice if unexpected to hear "Body Language" played in a shopping centre or out a car window

-the bounce remix of Adele's "Hello"

Love this, also love that there are people in New Orleans who are not really aware of non-bounce versions of Adele songs.

just found that bounce hello,it's great!

I already posted one thing upthread, but a few hon. mentions follow. I've been to rather more live music events than usual in the past 12 months or so, partly down to (and partly acting as a proxy for) my friend Robbie who had a stroke in March and was in the care of the NHS for much of the year (he's home now, thankfully).

- Basil Kirchin weekend in Hull in February; a fantastic weekend of concerts, screenings and talks, with Sean O'Hagan and friends the highlight; I also took in the COUM Transmissions gallery show in Hull at the same time

- Sarah Angliss album launch show at Kings Place in London, ably supported by Ian Rawes (aka the London Sound Survey, who I encountered again in Southwark a few months later - see below) and DJ Special K

- Meridian Brothers at Rich Mix in London's trendy Shoreditch; gig of the year - danced my ass off (and I never dance), as did everyone else

- Delia Derbyshire 80th birthday tribute gig in Coventry Cathedral

- Musicity London weekend in Southwark, especially Siân Hutchings' Sonic Walk in Peckham. Musicity's core purpose is to commission musicians and recording artists to compose tracks in response to specific buildings and locations in cities around the world, which are downloadable from the website but geo-tagged so you can only listen to by actually visiting the buildings in question. I may nominate the Sean O'Hagan (him again) track for the EOY poll...

Sean O’Hagan had something new this year? Gotta check that out

If I had to POO, then probably pogoing to Lumpy & The Dumpers at Static Shock Weekend (/username checks out)

Every Thursday lunchtime, at the community arts charity where I volunteer, I meet up with a DJ friend in the charity's dedicated DJ room, for exactly one hour. He brings his vinyl and CDs, I bring mine, and we alternate our choices. It's my one opportunity of the week to geek out with a kindred spirit, and our tastes intersect very well. Once severely hobbled by autism, his exceptional skill as a DJ has given him a career around the country, and I find his passion, knowledge and ability hugely inspiring.

mike wins the thread.

A Carl Craig set on a great soundsystem
Playing the Danny Krivit edit of My Love Is Free by Double Exposure and watching a bunch of twenty something gay otter types dance to the entirety of tit.

Seeing the Flamin Groovies with Bebe Buell in Nashville. The still-cute groupie stood next to me in front of the stage and then flew off to join her old friends in the dressing room.

not nearly enough live music this year! normally I see a lot more local shows but the idea of heading out all the time to catch them left me feeling enervated

seeing The Melvins, having completely forgotten they were going to be in town but texting a friend on a whim and getting invited to join. it was exactly what I needed and was so enthused that I hugged a coworker I ran into at the venue after they finished

heading to Brooklyn on a whim when I was in NYC for business, seeing Inga Copeland and some great openers, it just clicked and was a great crowd

getting over my dislike for huge arena shows to see Depeche Mode, checked every box of what a huge audience show should be, enthusiastic fans singing along, video clips just for the tour, sounded great

You might check out Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits, with lots of my own childhood faves: he was smart about doing theme songs from movies with kid appeal--not Disney so much, but big screen Westerns---also covered some by Jimmie (sometimes Jimmy) Driftwood, who started as a schoolteacher, writing historical (or sometimes dime novel) yarn-songs for his students.

― dow, Thursday, December 21, 2017 12:39 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

will do, thanks dow!

cosigning dow re Johnny Horton
I think it’s Battle of New Orleans he sings about turning an alligator into a canon :D

cannon, even

The biggest thing for me musically was that I went to my first concert since 2006. It's really weird because before then live music had been a pretty huge part of my life, but moving out of the city and having kids and having very little money in general had kinda scuttled that for a while. I had decided that I wanted to go see a show before I turn 40 next year and bought tickets to like 4 different shows that I ended up having to sell the tickets at the last minute due to schedule conflicts. Finally made it happen for Wolf Alice at the 930 Club. I know other adults go to shows, but I have no idea how they make it happen. Anyway, managed to see one of my favorite bands live.

Anticipated new albums by three favorite bands: Paramore, Queens of the Stone Age, and Wolf Alice. I had gotten into all of these bands for the most part on their last album cycle, when their releases had caught my ear by surprise. So this time around I went through a cycle of anticipation, met with occasionally confounded expectations or complete musical surprises, followed by deep listening to try to wrap my head around their new stuff, which led me to find many things to love about the new records.

Albums that caught me by surprise this year: Jane Weaver - Modern Kosmology, Melkbelly - Nothing Valley, Dave Catching - Shared Hallucinations Vol. 1.

Rediscovering the B-52s this spring. Have long been a fan of the self-titled, but when I went on a bender of the first 3 albums I rediscovered a bunch of songs that used to get played a lot on my local modern rock station back in the day and I had simply forgotten about for the past 25 years.

Discovering Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy just before Christmas. This falls into a long pattern of me ignoring a musician for years and years because I just assume I won't like them for all the wrong reasons. Whoops.

Put down my guitar for a while and spent the early year just woodshedding a bunch of Beatles songs on bass. I don't think that anyone in my house wants to hear me thump my way through Savoy Truffle or Back in the U.S.S.R. again but I could do it in my sleep now.

At the close of the year dug out an old favorite, 50 Foot Wave's Power + Light, and have made significant progress hacking my way through that on guitar.

Taught my daughter to play a couple of songs that she wanted to learn on piano: Here Comes the Bride and Jingle Bells.

Getting into what turned out to be a financially fortuitous car accident while I was listening to Paramore's "Hard Times" was at least interesting.

― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, December 16, 2017 2:41 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also, glad to hear that your car accident turned out ok, Rudipherous!

https://media.giphy.com/media/3ohc1aWVjjQevuvBwA/giphy.gif

btw, reading through all of these and I agree with Matt DC's statement that this is a great thread NickB. So happy for all the cool stuff people experienced this year. Hanging out with Melvin Gibbs? Covering Gates of Steel? Tascam tape collages? Doing paintings to old Mazzy Star records? All this stuff. Good to see how much everybody loved music this year.

@ how's life - learning Beatles songs on bass is great, very challenging and informative and great musical practice in general. even something as seemingly simple as 'from me to you' is really complex and full of sweet counterpoint and stellar composition.

One of the best things for me was the ILM 80s R&B Top 250 poll. I've shuffled through this playlist many times, a mix of the familiar and new, and it played like an alternate history of the decade — I grew up in Vermont and probably wasn't exposed to a lot of this stuff as a kid; later, I had the idea that R&B was moribund after the disco era. But this playlist was as consistently fun as any listening experience I had in 2017. So thanks, ILM!

on Xmas night i did some drunken record shopping for the first time in my life and spent ~$500 on 80s vinyl from Japan. there was so much ILM introduced me to across several threads YMO related and otherwise and I had some Xmas money and i was fuck, threw down on Miharu Koshi, Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi, etc. i even ended up getting a Trattoria picture disc. the first week of 2018 has been all these amazing records showing up in the mail (and me being afraid of playing them lol)

In 2017 I got more into hosting music trivia nights at a bar, and writing questions, which forced me to keep looking at music from different perspectives and focusing on different areas/genres. At home I enjoyed seeing my 7-year-old pull my old cassettes from the basement at random, so I might come in his room and find him listening to random things - Dinosaur Jr, Desmond Dekker, The Outfield, Yoko Ono, all sorts of things. My favorite live-music experiences this year were hiphop arena shows - Kendrick Lamar, Future/Migos. Oh and two smaller shows I learned about at the last minute and just barely made it to - Joan Shelley/Jake Xerxes Fussell was one, the other was Robyn Hitchcock in somebody's loft apartment. I had a bad case of writer's block this year, which was frustrating but also a bit freeing.

Oh man irt the first posts i this thread - i saw grouper play a snobby art party i 2017 behind a huge bowl of shrimp cocktail and no one even paid attention to her. it was still awesome, but just goes to show ya live music in context.

It was really amazing seeing Sparks with an actual amazing ROCK band finally after years of duo, orchestra and dull ass Franz Ferdinand shows. Also I stood behind Ned the whole time which made it rock more.

Undisputed musical highlight was the MRI scan I had in May. An hour shut in a minimalist techno/drone chamber. Incredible stuff.

Runner up was taking my eldest to see Nick Cave, something she's wanted to do for years but has never fallen into place.

The rest:

Eating Ethiopian before seeing SWANS while the restaurant played CDs of Begena recordings, then hanging out with Norman Westberg for a bit because I think I'm the only guy in Britain that buys his CD-Rs.

The opening night party of a Mexican microbrewery, soundtracked by a guy doing alt-country versions of Narcocorrido.

Breakfast in the hotel next to said microbrewery accompanied by a toothless guy with a two string guitar throttling the life out of Cielito Lindo.

Mohammad doing a full-on *performance* of a doom/drone band to a completely indifferent audience and people actively walking out.

Oxbow just fucking killing it live and on record.

Ex-Easter Island Head carrying the torch of NYC minimalism and setting fire to venues with it.

Finally telling John Doran to his face what a great writer he is.

Speaking to people (actual real musicians) who were so inspired by the lecture I gave a couple of years ago on no-input mixing to incorporate bits of it into their work, and vague collaboration plans.

Not learning to play banjo for another year.

Idly pulling Come And Get It off the shelf and instantly proclaiming it the great lost pop album of the 2000s to anyone who'll listen.

Sitting in the bar of a Berlin microbrewery while they were having a staff party round me and staying far longer than I intended because of their bangin' glam rock mixtape. Then having to explain to one of their staff why Gary Glitter doesn't get played in Britain any more after a particularly raucous singalong to Rock 'n' Roll Part 1.

Seeing Slayer finish their Primavera set with Raining Blood and Angel of Death and moshing like fuck. Also hearing lots of Spanish lads shouting 'Slyyyer!!'

Seeing Skepta at Primavera and getting super sweaty.

Wandering around Primavera on my own for two days because my friends only wanted to see stuff on the final day and I wanted to see the whole thing. Solo festival going is definitely something I'd be up for in future

Seeing Stormzy and moshing like fuck to Know Me From with a bunch of teenagers (moshpit of the year)

Seeing Dizzee Rascal live and him doing tracks from Boy In Da Corner

Optimo 20 (especially Nurse With Wound)

Optimo 20 afterparty (one of my best Sub Club experiences)

Yves Tumor live

Seeing Spencer from Numbers play 'Watching Trees' by Eleven Pond as the last track of the night and losing my shit

Feeling like I'm getting better at making my on music. I made a new year's resolution last year to finish a track a month and I just about stuck to it

Playing UK drill music to my dad when home for Christmas. I thought he'd hate it but he thought it was amazing

I bought quite a lot of music this year but I'm aware that none of my best musical memories are of buying music or listening to it at home. I love those things but they're just not as intense as good live music experiences and therefore less memorable I guess